Final kill
by lilmermaid
Summary: The last of those darker days Edward had as a newborn. The final kill. I just made this up and I don't know if it's any good, so you'd better R&R!


Her name was Marie Winston, and she was worried about the rain.

Yes, the rain.

Out of all the things there could possibly be to worry about if you happened to be a young woman, alone in a shady neighbourhood at night.

Rain.

I never really think to look back on those darker days of my life, the days of rebellion and defiance. My newborn days. They were too painful.

I don't know why it was so painful to me, even at the time. Maybe because even as I drained the life from their weak bodies I was forced to endure their every thought, their every mood.

Their thoughts usually started out mundane, human -worry, stress, pettiness. That is, until they saw me.

Then there was wonder and amazement at the beautiful creature before them. But there was also a resistance -some hidden, instinctive part of them that told them what their minds could not.

I was dangerous. Deadly dangerous.

After that, their thoughts depended on how I decided to kill them. I would usually study them for a time, thinking of the best way to kill them. Sometimes I enjoyed killing them. As I told Bella nearly eighty years later, the humans I killed were hardly more human than I.

But no matter how I killed them, their thoughts always ended one way.

In complete and total terror.

This was no different for Marie Winston.

It was nineteen-twenty, and I had been watching her for a while. She was innocent, she had done nothing wrong, but I was so incredibly thirsty and she smelled so good.

Eighty years later, as I dimly recalled my encounter with her scent, it seemed weak and insignificant, a single star, outshone by a million brighter suns. Her scent would be nothing to me if I had come across it today. Not after Bella.

But at the time, she was the most appetizing thing I had ever smelled.

And who was I to deny it? I was, after all, the monster. I had no reason to stop myself. My resolve only wavered a tiny bit as I thought of the one person who truly cared for me; as I thought of his disappointment if he was to see the choices I was making now.

Carlisle.

And for one single moment, I did not want to be the monster I truly was. For one moment, I wanted to go back to Carlisle, to beg his forgiveness.

That all changed as Marie Winston stepped out of the diner ahe had been in and into the night, worrying about the rain that was sprinkling from the sky.

_Got to get home soon,_ she thought. _Before a real storm starts up._

I almost laughed at her silly thoughts. Why would anyone worry about the rain while I was around? But her thoughts meant little. She would not go on thinking them much longer.

I had spent the time that she was in the diner contemplating my attack. I had decided that if she had to smell this good, I would have fun. I would play with my food before eating it. I stepped out of the shadows and into the light beside her.

"Excuse me, miss," I said.

She turned at the sound of my voice, and when she saw me, her thoughts slipped into the typical fascination and the slight edge of fear that normally accompanied my presence.

"Yes?" she breathed, a blush creeping up her neck and heating her face. I could feel her warmth all around me, imagine my lips against her flushed skin, my teeth against the pulsing vein in her throat.

I forced a smile that caught her off guard. "I couldn't help but notice that you were alone, and have no umbrella. If you don't mind, I could accompany you?" I trailed off into a question, leaving her to decide.

As if she could make her own choice.

_Oh, my,_ she thought. _He's like nothing I've ever seen before. And yet something..._

"Of course," she said, shaking off the uneasy thought, and I went to stand beside her, unfolding the umbrella that I had over her head.

"Where to?" I asked. She was caught off guard by my smile, and couldn't collect her thoughts enough to speak, so she just started walking. I went along with her.

_If mother was to see me with this boy..._ I didn't listen to her thoughts. I tuned them out and instead looked at Marie.

She would have been very attractive to a human male, with her creamy skin, light hair and long lashes, but I wasn't interested in that. She was sensibly and fashionably dressed, and I wondered if she had a huaband. She looked to be about sixteen, so maybe.

"Excuse me," she said, having regained the ability to speak. "What's your name?"

"Edward," I said, not bothering to lie, for this information would not be of use to her much longer.

"I'm Marie," she said, a fact that I already knew from the thoughts of those around her. "Marie Winston. And your last name, Edward?"

"Cullen," I replied automatically, though a bitter taste filled my mouth almost as soon as the word was out. I did not deserve that name, and I never would.

I couldn't bear this guilt a second longer. I abruptly stopped in front of a small alleyway. She stopped too.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I know a shortcut," I lied, and led her into it. She did not question me outwardly -I dazzled her too much for that- But inside her thoughts were going from amazed to anxious, and then to fear as I stopped in the shadows of the alley.

"Mr. Cullen?" she asked nervously.

I felt remorse, immense remorse for what I hadn't done yet, but I was too deep ion to resist.

And then I made my desicion.

This would be my last human kill.

As the guilt overwhelmed me, I reached out slowly and carefully to touch her cheek with the back of my hand.

A fearful thought in her mind: _Her, on the ground, robbed. Me, standing over her, the villan._

"I'm so sorry, Marie," I said, and I felt her thought of pure terror as I leaned in, as if to kiss her.

My teeth bit into her skin, and I was lost to the monster within me.

She did not have time to scream or fight back.

But as she went limp, and the delicious blood from her body flowed from her and into me, guilt overwhelmed me and I could take it no longer.

This was the last; she was the last.

The final kill.

I would go back to Carlisle and weep and beg and stream neverending apologies.

And maybe, someday, I could earn his forgiveness for what I had done.


End file.
